I was reading the thread earlier about public rebuke and wondered what everyone would think about this scenario.
There is a couple who had questions concerning endtimes. They asked their pastor over to discuss it. They showed him Bible and asked what he felt was the answer. He held an entirely different opinion than theirs. He felt the rapture was pre-trib.
He then told them not to come back to his church because he was not able to be their pastor. They were very faithful members in giving and church work.
The husband was even the Sunday School Superintendant.
They were in no way strifeful.
This couple went the following Sunday to another church of the same Pentecostal denomination. The former pastor found out and called the new
pastor. He told him in no way to accept this couple into his church and said
many disparaging things. Other area pastors got the same phone call.
Thus this couple stayed out of church services for a whole year.
Finally one pastor who was of the same pentecostal denomination called them and invited them to service. He took them in and allowed them to work for Jesus in small areas later trusting them in other areas.
The former pastor found out about it. He stood behind the pulpit and told the whole church family that if they even visited this church that fellowshipped this family that they were never to return to his assembly. They were to shun them and all the church members. Even members of their family....children etc who attended the church were warned.
It gets better. An unsuspecting couple starts going to the new church they attend and become friends. They meet together to discuss Bible every Sunday afternoon indepth.
The pastor old pastor finds out and then announces the name of the new couple they are friends with and says that if anyone fellowships them as well they are not to come back to his church.
Have I been in the dark for a long time or does this go on in many churches
and pentecostal denominations?
What a hinderance to the Gospel this is. When will people grow up and do something for Jesus. It seems so much like Junior High. No wonder people are lost and going to hell. The focus is all about total compliance. So what if people have Bible questions.We ought to all be digging deep into the word.
I want this to be a lesson to me the next time I pastor that people who really study are to be encouraged and they don't have to line up with my every train of thought. Jesus is the judge. If its not a salvational issue and
even if they are researching salvational issues deeper then its a good thing.
Its better than sitting brain dead on a pew putting in their tithes and offerings each week like pentecostal clones. I can't see that in the New Testament Church. I remember an elder quoting it was better to cool down
a fanatic than to warm the dead!
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